Pages

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

It's Not About the Metric

I originally wrote today's post for Confirmit in November 2014. I've made some modifications.

In November 2014, I participated in the Hooked On Customers Summit, a webinar series hosted by Bob Thompson of CustomerThink. I joined Bob, along with Jeanne Bliss, in the first webinar to discuss Creating Actionable Insight from a Customer Listening Engine. Jeanne talked about the role of the Chief Customer Officer, while I ran through my Six Steps to Turn VoC into Action.

One of the questions posed by Bob during the webinar was: “How can managers avoid the metric becoming a goal rather than an indicator?”
This is a great question and one that needs to be addressed early and
often in any customer experience management effort. All too often, we
see companies chasing the metric, whichever one they choose, and trying
to figure out how to move the number rather than appreciating it for
what it is – a number. A number that gives you a moment in time read on
how you’re performing – and that’s it. It doesn’t tell you what you’ve
done right or wrong, and it doesn’t tell you how to move the number.

Anaheim Angels first baseman Albert Pujols was quoted as saying: I
don’t get caught up in numbers. I think when you start doing that, you
start disrespecting the game. You start forgetting what your main focus
is, and that’s winning and helping your ball club to win.

Amen to that! When we get caught up in the metric, when we place our
focus solely on the metric, we lose sight of what it is that we’re
really trying to do: improve the customer experience. When we focus on
the metric, we try to tinker with things here and there just to see what
moves the needle and don’t think about the big picture.

Sure, the metric can help to rally the troops – but that’s only if it’s
presented in the right context. It’s not the right context if you…

mention the score without even talking about the customer and the customer experience

game surveys just to get a score

threaten disciplinary actions or lost compensation if an employee doesn’t achieve a score

How, then, do we avoid the metric being the goal rather than an indicator? Here are a few suggestions:

Talk about customers – and what your customers are saying

Make the metric the last thing you talk about – or don’t talk about it at all

Share what’s important to customers

Tell stories about customer successes and customer experiences

Focus on behaviors and what it takes to improve the experience

Share customer feedback and verbatims

Act on the feedback

Coach and praise based on feedback and the experience the customer had

Focus on business outcomes

Ensure that employees have a clear line of sight to the customer

And give them a clear understanding of how they contribute to the customer experience

Don’t measure for the sake of measuring, and don’t listen just for the
sake of measuring. Listen because you want to understand the customer
and where the experience is falling down (or standing up). And then act
on what you hear. Don’t just focus on improving the score; improve the
experience, and the numbers will follow.

I think Simon Sinek said it best when he said: Focus on the vision and the numbers will thrive. Focus on the numbers and the vision will struggle (and so will the numbers).